The Certainties of Steve McGarrett
by Paradoqz
Summary: Steve is good with fixations.


TITLE: The Certainties of Steve McGarett

AUTHOR: Paradoqz  
>SHOW: Hawaii 5-O<br>ARCHIVE: Please ask.  
>DISCLAIMER: Main characters mentioned belong to CBS. No profit is being made.<p>

Detective Steve McGarett, late of the United States Navy, is a man of obsessions. He's aware of it and has long made his peace with it. In fact he considers it one of his strengths. It was that monomaniacal concentration that got him out of Hawaii, got him through the Hell Week, through the tours in the Rockpile and the Sandbox, through interminable chases of paper-trails and blood-trails in the Office of Naval Intelligence.

Steve is good with fixations. They give his world stability, purpose and as such - a measure of comfort. Of course not every obsession lends itself to solutions. Some, after all, are not problems, simply conditions.

His father was one of such. Etched into Steve's mental landscape, John McGarett's shadow looms over his life, even - and perhaps especially - after John's death.

The Hesse Brothers become another, after Steve spends the better part of the decade climbing inside the head of the two sociopathic impresarios of modern terrorism. And in the end Viktor and Anton inexplicably became intertwined with his father's place in the dark and uncomfortable maze of Steve's backbrain, becoming yet another indelible fixture coloring every step and decision, no matter how small.

Abyss staring back at him. Forever.

One of the reasons he and Danny fall into each other's patterns so easily is that they are essentially the same. They do not agree more often than they do, and what they think is usually wildly in opposition. But the way they think is shockingly similar.

Danny, after all, is too a man of compulsions. And, by an large, the same ones that drive his new boss. Job and Family is his pantheon as well, but... But.

Where Steve is driven by demons, Danny... isn't.

His daughter is his blessing and his life. And for all the habitual and expected bitching, catching bad guys is not a cursed burden that weighs heavily upon his shoulders. It's a job that needs doing, that he does well. And that's more than enough for him to draw joy from.

The weird unsimilar similarities mesh almost instantly, hidden from the outsiders (and themselves, often enough) by the constant bickering and the occasional outburst of physical violence.

Neither would admit it but both have largely alienated every other partner. Usually within the first two hours of the relationship.

And so the constants of Steve McGarett's life grow yet again.

By the second week of his new jobs he is utterly certain of three things.

One day something ugly and poisonous will burst forth from the toolbox his father left him. Steve will be ready. He will. Yet the idea and the potential for damage it could bring to his new, small, still fragile and yet fiercely HIS world, feels him with cold dread.

Viktor Hesse is alive. And one day he will return, bringing horror, blood and fire with him. Steve will be ready. He will. Yet the potential for violence inherent in himself and the growing chinks in the armor of rigid control he had been wrapping around himself since he first set his eyes on the world outside Hawaii - terrify him. He is afraid as much of what he might do when Viktor resurfaces, as of Hesse's plans for revenge themselves.

One day Danny and Kona are going to sleep together. He is utterly convinced of it within seconds of Danny's jaw hitting the beach's sand when he first sees Kona. As weeks pass and Kona utterly wins over Gracie with origami, overt surfing (and covert unarmed combat) lessons, Steve increasingly needs a stiff drink to contemplate the inevitable denouement.

Frankly he's not entirely sure of his ability to stop Chin from quietly burying Danny's body up in the hills.

When the time comes, it does so quietly, sneaking up on them all. He doesn't really blame himself for missing the signs - it was a bit of a hectic week. Everyone was out of it - Chin at home, hugging a bottle of Percocet in the wake of having the singular misfortune of entering the bar occupied on that night by a particularly unpleasant passel of uniforms.

What exact words were exchanged remains unclear, but the next morning - after visiting Chin at the hospital - Steve and Denny, silently get in the car and traverse Honolulu from end to end, working steadily down the list that the bartender helpfully provided.

No charges are ever filed - but it's a close-run thing, and the reputation of his team as Governor's pets is firmly sealed. Steve doesn't think the gulf between them and the beat-cops will ever be truly bridged now. After waiting for Chin to wake up that morning - he isn't particularly upset about it.

In the wake of the debacle, he locks himself in his father's house and drinks for a while. The same approximate recipe is faithfully echoed by Danny and Kona. The latter starts out as utterly pissed at them both, for being left out of the fun.

She gets over it fairly quickly, judging by the unchanged clothes and a generally rumpled-happy look she's wearing the next day when they are unexpectedly called out on a case.

Steve's brain is still fairly pickled but he catches on, eventually, and immediately descends into the foulest mood he's been in for months. The situation is not helped by the fact that the objects of his wrath manage to ignore him (and his wrath) with considerable ease and equanimity.

He agonizes for a week about whether or not to tell Chin, until Chin tells him. The elder cousin is still wearing a somewhat concussed look - less due to the actual concussion and more, apparently, due to Kona's visit.

Steve eventually gathers that the conversation was - in its essentials - the traditional shotgun talk. Except in this version Kona promises to take the shotgun to Chin if he as much as dreams about delivering the lecture to Danny.

Steve and Chin contemplate the events in silence for a while and then simultaneously change the topic.

Still, it's not till Gracie calls the former football star and disgraced cop 'uncle Chin,' instead of 'Mr. Kelly' - and the wannabe biker's eyes visibly thaw - that Steve truly relaxes.

Three weeks later Gracie is kidnapped by Viktor Hesse, and Steve leads Danny into Hell.


End file.
